O.C. bluesman Kid Ramos gets help from his musical family

Friends and family of Kid Ramos gathered to talk about music and their lives together in January 2013. They are, back row from left: Condren Hampton, Johnny Main, Heather Lopez, Mike Molina; middle row: Linda Ramos, Kid Ramos, Anthony Ramos, James Intveld; front row: Jeff Nadel and Terri McIntire. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Guitarist Kid Ramos sits upon his 1953 Harley Davidson at his home in Anaheim in January 2011. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Linda Ramos, wife of blues guitarist Kid Ramos, talks about her life since Kid was diagnosed with cancer last year. The help of family and friends has been important, she says, mentioning friends such as Lorrie Atkins and Allison Rodriguez, her workout buddies and spirits-lifters, and Gina McClain, a friend at Delta Groove Music who has helped with donations and well-wishers through Kid Ramos' record label. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Musicians James Intveld, left, Johnny Main and Kid Ramos pose for a photograph at Ramos' home in Anaheim. Kid Ramos was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Musician James Intveld talks about his longtime friend, blues guitarist Kid Ramos, as he sits with Ramos' family and friends as they gather at the Ramos home in Anaheim. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A room in Kid Ramos' house in this January 2011 photo is a reflection of his lifelong love of music, containing old record albums, photos, instruments and other musical memorabilia. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Jeff Nadel talks about his friend, blues guitarist Kid Ramos, as he sits with Ramos' family and friends as they gather at the Ramos home in Anaheim. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A poster in Ramos' home announcing "Los Fabulocos featuring guitar Legend Kid Ramos", is among many pieces of musical memorabilia. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Johnny Main, left, Kid Ramos, and James Intveld look on from the background as Linda Ramos, wife of blues guitarist Kid Ramos, shows an early photograph on her phone of her husband and friends at their home in Anaheim. Kid Ramos was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Guitarist Kid Ramos, in this January 2011 photo, came from a musical family, both his parents were opera singers, but unlike his parents Ramos has become a legendary Blues guitarist. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kid Ramos, a blues guitarist with the band Los Fabulocos, talks about life since he was diagnosed with cancer last year, from the patio of his home in Anaheim. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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As Johnny Main, left, and Jeff Nadel, right, speak with others , Kid Ramos, second from left, chats with Condren Hampton in January 2013. Ramos was diagnosed with cancer lin 2012. Friends, fans, fellow musicians have held benefits and fundraisers to help defray some of his medical expenses. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Musician Johnny Main talks about his friend blues guitarist Kid Ramos as he sits with Ramos family and friends as they gather at the Ramos home in Anaheim. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kid Ramos, left, and Jeff Nadel at the Ramos home in Anaheim as friends and family of Ramos gathered to talk about music and their lives together in January 2013. Ramos was diagnosed with cancer lin 2012. Friends, fans, fellow musicians have held benefits and fundraisers to help defray some of his medical expenses. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kid Ramos, a blues guitarist who has played solo and with bands including the Mannish Boys, Los Fabulocos and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, smiles as he talks about his life, family and friends since he was diagnosed with cancer last year, from the patio of his home in Anaheim. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kid Ramos talks about life since he was diagnosed with cancer last year, from the patio of his home in Anaheim. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kid Ramos, left, and Jeff Nadel embrace at the Ramos home in Anaheim in January 2013. Ramos was diagnosed with cancer lin 2012. Friends, fans, fellow musicians have held benefits and fundraisers to help defray some of his medical expenses. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kid Ramos plays guitar in this shot from Delta Groove Music, the record label where he's performed with his own groups and on sessions by many other artists in recent years. COURTESY OF DELTA GROOVE MUSIC

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Kid Ramos concentrates for a solo in this shot from his record label, Delta Groove Music. COURTESY OF DELTA GROOVE MUSIC

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Kid Ramos, left, plays with Los Fabulocos at the Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Festival a few years back. COURTESY OF STEVE STODDARD AND DELTA GROOVE MUSIC

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Kid Ramos and Janiva Magness at Doheny Days in Dana Point in 2001. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Friends and family of Kid Ramos gathered to talk about music and their lives together in January 2013. They are, back row from left: Condren Hampton, Johnny Main, Heather Lopez, Mike Molina; middle row: Linda Ramos, Kid Ramos, Anthony Ramos, James Intveld; front row: Jeff Nadel and Terri McIntire.MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Kid Ramos benefit concerts

Saturday, Jan. 26: Lynwood Slim and Kid Ramos will play on a bill with the Memphis Kings, Paul Pigat, and Amber Foxx. At Bigs Fullerton, 323 North State College Blvd., Fullerton. Doors open at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 2: Los Fabulocos and other guests will play at Nick's Taste of Texas, 545 N. Citrus Ave., Covina. Show starts at 9 p.m.

The lump showed up a year ago, a hard knot on the back of David "Kid" Ramos' hip that the blues guitarist had never noticed before. So he went to the doctor – "My wife made me go," he says with a wry grin, "as wives do" – and was told it was just a fatty mass, nothing to worry about.

Sometimes it hurt, sometimes it hurt a lot, but Ramos, 54, who's played with groups such as the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the James Harman Band and Los Fabulocos, went about his normal life for the next few months, working as an account manager for a landscaping company by day, playing gigs around Southern California at night.

By summer, though, the pain was worse. A short tour with the Mannish Boys, an all-star blues revue, ended with a concert in Beirut, Lebanon, after which Ramos and his wife Linda took a brief side trip to Paris. By the time they got home to Anaheim, Ramos was whipped, beat, wiped out.

Another trip to a different doctor. This one thought the lump was a cyst and cut into it with no result other than more pain. A trip to the ER followed, where after waiting all day to be seen he finally got tested for all the bad things that a mysterious lump might be.

"A few doctors came in there after the CAT scan and I thought, "OK, here we go,'" Ramos says. Two weeks later the biopsy results were back.

"He goes, 'Look, you've got cancer. But let me tell you something: I have cancer, I've had it for eight years. Don't let anybody tell you what your chances are.'"

Kid Ramos took all that in, as Linda Ramos fought back tears. The doctor offered one more thing then.

"Can I pray with you?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Ramos said.

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Cancer wasn't uncommon in Ramos' family. His grandfather, father and brother all have had prostate cancer. Ramos, though, had something different, Ewing's sarcoma, a type of cancer that doctors told him normally afflicts children and young adults. What that meant didn't really hit him until a few weeks after his diagnosis when the oncologist called to go over a treatment plan with him.

"He said, 'It's a year of chemotherapy and radiation and surgery, and then more chemotherapy,'" Ramos says. "I was by myself in my work car. After that I got off the phone and I cried. It was just the weight of the whole thing. I started thinking, 'What am I going to do? How am I going to make money? What's going to happen with my family?'"

Ramos' thoughts were with his immediate family then, Linda and their two sons, Anthony, 19, and Johnny, 13. But as he started treatment last fall he soon realized that his family was much broader, much more loosely defined, filled with friends and fellow musicians and fans he'd met all over the world.

Mike Molina, the drummer in Los Fabulocos, with whom Ramos played and recorded two albums in recent years, organized a benefit concert at Taste of Texas in Covina. Lynwood Slim, the blues harmonica player who'd collaborated with Ramos on many occasions, got another one together at Harvelle's in Long Beach.

Other concerts to raise money for medical and other expenses took place in San Diego, Phoenix, Belgium, Italy and Canada. Randy Chortkoff, owner of Delta Groove Music, the record label for Los Fabulocos, the Mannish Boys and many other projects on which Ramos has played, placed a link on the label's website for people to donate.

"In the course of playing music all these years I always played benefits," Ramos says. "I did one for Slim maybe eight months before I got sick. I used to go visiting him in the hospital every day."

Now, it was his turn to let others help him.

"When you come to a point in your life when something like this happens, you really find out what your friends are like," Ramos says. "They come to support you because that's what friends do. James (Intveld) has taken me to radiation. Jeff (Nadel) too. Terri (McIntire) has brought over home-cooked meals.

"People I don't know send me stuff. They send me well wishes. People just don't know how much that encourages you. And it's not even the money, it's that they're thinking of you.

"All these people," Ramos says. "It's incredible how people are so genuine and they reach out when you're in need."

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Ramos is home now, recuperating from six weeks of daily radiation treatments. Most days he gets some sun on the patio for a few hours but by late afternoon he's fatigued and starting to think about bed. He says he's not used to being so limited in how much he can do.

"When I was young I never stopped moving," he says. "I was going all the time. But when something like this happens you realize, 'I'm not Superman. I'm flesh and blood.'"

Some friends have stopped by to visit this day. There's Intveld, the roots-rock and country singer and songwriter, Molina, the Los Fabulocos drummer, and Johnny Main, guitarist and singer for the 44s, a roots-and-blues band whose two albums Ramos produced.

A few more friends arrive: Nadel and Condren Hampton, who've helped drive Ramos to appointments with his doctors and radiation treatments, McIntire, whose delivered meals and lent a hand at some of the benefit shows, and Heather Lopez, Linda Ramos' niece who helps with the Kid Ramos Facebook page.

Intveld, who's known and played with Ramos since they were barely 20 years old, says he was shocked to hear while on tour in Europe last fall that Ramos was sick.

"We grew up playing music and we sort of forget we're middle-aged people like that," he says. "You start to realize that this is the time when things happen to people."

He got home from the tour thinking he needed to contact Ramos and found a message from him on his answering machine, asking him to call, telling him it was important.

"We'd always say we've got to get together more," Intveld says, talking about how his down time coincided with Ramos'. "All of a sudden there's actually time in your schedule to do things. It's kind of like being 22 again. We're going to the Indian (motorcycle) shop, we're working on the truck."

More benefit shows are ahead, and for Ramos, surgery to try to remove as much of the tumor as possible, followed by more chemo. He says he has good days and bad ones, but thinks it's a good sign that he's been playing his guitar more lately, building up the calluses on his fingers again.

"This is like really having the blues," he says of his illness. "But to be more on the positive side I don't sit around and think, 'Woe is me.' I don't know if I'm going to write any great songs out of this, but there definitely is some material in there."

For now, though, even with the turmoil and uncertainty of his illness, Ramos says that in an odd way he feels blessed.

"Something like this happens and all of a sudden life stops for you and you get a chance to think, 'What's important?' And what's important is relationships with your friends and family."

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